Well, the corn syrup industry may hope you don’t, but this guy knows:

I loved this, because every time I see the industry commercials trying to convince me it’s ok in moderation, I feel like shutting my tv off (and I would, but it’s Rachel Maddow….). I especially enjoyed the little “PS” at the end of the video.

This was featured on Eat Healthy Mondays, and gives some pretty compelling reasons to reconsider the place HFCS has in your diet.

“Cage free”, “Free Range”, “All Natural”, “No Antibiotics or Hormones Administered”, “Omega-3 of 225mg in Each Egg”, “Vegetarian Fed”, “Organic Vegetarian Feed”, “75 mcg of Folic Acid”

What do all of those mean, what are the differences from one label to the next, and why should you care? Well, to sum it up, here are things to look for on your egg cartons:

• Free Range
• Omega-3
• Organic Vegetarian Feed

Eat Well Guide goes into the specifics about which egg labels are BS, and which are the ones to look for.

Although these types of labels seem to be gaining ground due to consumers’ increasing demand for natural, safe and healthy food products, the labeling frenzy may at times confound rather than help the customer in making purchasing decisions.

And if you’re wondering why you should care, check out Sustainable Table, or watch The Meatrix:

The above post is Ezra Klein’s fault, if anyone cares. He’s got a good blog up today about why more people will be caring in the near future.

One last thing….later this week, a new restaurant is opening in Sugar House, called Au Naturel. If you’re anywhere near, you’ll want to check it out. Hopefully, I’ll be interviewing the owner soon, and can bring you all the delicious facts!

Houston is my hometown. I haven’t been back in quite a while, since Daddy’s not around anymore. But, it will always be home, and seeing Hurricane Ike ravaging Galvaston, right next door, is tearing my heart out. Katrina’s doesn’t seem all that long ago, and the devastation in New Orleans is something I’d hoped never to see again. As I drove back to work from lunch, I listened to an interview with some official in Galvaston, who said that the madatory evacuation they’ve issued says that if you don’t leave, you will die. Apparently, the last time that particular warning was sent out was with Katrina. The guy being interviewed said he was still seeing people on the streets, and that many hadn’t evacuated.

I was just watching the CNN Live Cam (IE only - and click the link on the right side if it’s showing you the map), and watched some guy in a truck pull away from the water line being shown. I sure hope he was getting the hell out, though I’m not sure that’s still possible. I haven’t heard or read anything other than what I just mentioned, and I’m not sure if I want to.

Not supposed to be crying at work. I think I might be done here for the day….

John Amateo, of Crooks and Liars (one of my favorite blogs), wrote a piece on the media’s concept that we’re voting for personalities, rather than policies. It’s a very informative read, most certainly. He ends with this:

This election is about restoring some order to our country. Here’s a memo to the media: Do some segments about POLICY! It matters when we’re actually trying to get jobs, pay bills and feed our families. I can’t make it any clearer than that.

A vote for McCain equals more War.

A vote for McCain equals No universal health care.

A vote for McCain equals a continued collapsing economy.

A vote for McCain equals higher gas prices.

A vote for McCain equals no help for the housing market.

A vote for McCain equals a further erosion of woman’s rights.

A vote for McCain equals ideologue judges being placed throughout the country.

As I put in the comments on the C&L blog, I take exception to the concept that McCain equals higher gas prices.

Ok, it’s true that McCain will bring higher gas prices, but the actual problem is higher energy prices. McCain will not put an emphasis on alternative energy, other than a token nod to it. He is not concerned with environmental impacts of oil drilling, or auto emissions. He is not concerned with how our energy needs have driven foreign policy. He is not concerned with the jobs that alternative energy technology will bring. He just wants to drill, and pretend that will solve all of our problems. In the end, it won’t be just higher gas prices, it will be higher energy prices, all around. And the US will not end up being a leader in current and upcoming technology, as we have in the past. We’ll have missed the boat, and put jobs, national security, and the economy at risk.

I had just dropped my oldest son off at his day care, and was taking my younger son over to his, when I was stopped at a traffic light. I watched in horror as a small sedan made a left turn at the light and ran over a bicyclist. The bike was in pieces, and the cyclist was laying in a very unnatural position. I can’t remember feeling such horror in my life as I did right then.

I see people all the time doing careless and dangerous things when behind the wheel. Someone in a hurry speeds up to make their turn in front of oncoming traffic, doesn’t stop for the pedestrian who was already crossing the road, sends text messages while driving, the list goes on.

And those are the kind of drivers that hit bikes and pedestrians. I have no idea what the story was with the driver of the car that hit the bike this morning, s/he may have been a very cautious driver, who wasn’t doing anything stupid. But what I saw shouldn’t have happened. And as I drove up to Layton for work, I kept thinking about how, when you get behind the wheel, you have a huge responsibility to everyone around you, and accidents like this morning don’t have to happen.

I hear people bitching about cyclists, grumpy that they have to share the road with them, especially with all the new bike lanes in Salt Lake. It really makes me mad when I hear this, because those people on bikes have every right to be there.

It also makes me mad when I see cyclists doing stupid things, and give other people any reason to bitch about sharing the road. When a cyclist doesn’t wait for a light, runs a stop sign, uses a pedestrian walkway to avoid obeying the rules of the road, or anything else like that, they make me mad, too. The rules are there for safety, and a cyclist has to obey them, too. (The cyclist this morning was obeying those rules, btw).

I’m sick to my stomach still, though I’ve finally stopped shaking. My mind keeps replaying the sedan literally running over the bike, several feet in the air, and the bike pieces flying, and the cyclist laying in the road twisted. It didn’t have to happen, it shouldn’t happen again. I’m going to be buying a new bike soon, but this has me second guessing that decision.

And since I’m on a rant, the same goes for motorcyclists. There’s blame on both sides, but my most recent experience was on the freeway, in the fast lane. I was passing a semi, and a guy on a bullet bike was behind me. He was up close, and I figured he wanted to pass, and though I was a bit irritated, I decided to get out of his way after I’d passed the semi. So, right after I passed, I turned on my blinker to get over, and waited maybe 3 seconds as I moved far enough ahead to be safe. I checked, and the bike was still behind me, checked my side mirror to make sure the semi was where I thought it was, and began to get over. As I did, I also turned my head to verify that I was clear. Well, apparently, I wasn’t getting out of the way fast enough for the bullet bike, and he had squeezed in between the semi and me. There was absolutely no safe way for the bike to squeeze through, and it really pissed me off that his stupidity almost lead to me killing him.

So, be safe, remember that your hurry isn’t everyone else’s problem and be more aware of the world around you, ok? Oh, and think about what a favor the cyclists are doing you by saving the environment, and not increasing the demand for gasoline, and give them a break.

P.S. I’ll be back to blogging eventually. Family issues are taking all of my attention right now, and I barely have time to think.

Update: While looking for new of the accident I saw this morning, I came across two local news items that really add to my point that people need to pay more attention. First, from KSL:

A man has been seriously injured in a car crash that was caused by a distracted driver. Police say the driver was texting when the wreck happened.

And from KUTV 2:

A woman was struck by a vehicle and killed in Weber County late Tuesday night while walking to the grocery store, authorities said.

Investigators said it appears that Mary Deats was trying to cross Harrison and 15th Street in Ogden at approximately 10:00 p.m.  A driver traveling north on Harrison didn’t see the elderly woman until it was too late.

It’s no wonder we parents are so protective of our children that the childhood experience today is so much different than when we grew up. I sometimes wonder how it is that I don’t let my 10 year old son walk 3 blocks to the 7-11 for a Slurpee by himself, and then stuff like this happens, and I realize that he’s going to be 30 before that happens….

If anyone does have news on the cyclist accident from this morning, please share. I’d really like to know if the rider was ok.

Tags: bicycles

I really, really, really can’t wait for the Downtown Farmer’s Market to open! I’m excited to get fresh, local produce, and see the vendors. I’ve had the opening date (June 14th) set up on my calendar for months. Here’s the information on the opening celebration:

Market Merriment
Gather with the Growers

The Downtown Farmers Market celebrates the opening of its 16th season!
Enjoy a festive evening with farmers, fun, food, and famous ale.

Monday, June 9th, 2008
5 pm – 8 pm
Squatters Pub Brewery
147 West Broadway

$25 in advance, $30 at the door
Local flavors and spirits provided
Proceeds benefit the Farmers Market

For more information contact Danica Farley at 801.333.1105 or
danica@downtownslc.org.

And the info on the actual Farmer’s Market:

The Downtown Farmers Market opens on June 14, 2008. We can’t wait to see you there.

When: Saturdays - June thru Oct Time: 8:00am to 1:00pm Where: Historic Pioneer Park (300 South & 300 West) The Downtown Farmers Market is a local growers’ market, featuring fresh produce from over 70 Utah farmers. In addition to the produce, the Market also offers a variety of fresh baked breads and pastries, cheeses, meat and seafood, jams and honeys, house and garden plants, arranged planters, and numerous handmade arts & crafts. Unique food vendors also are a part of the Market, offering prepared foods and beverages. Sign up for to recieve “Fresh Peaches” , the Farmers’ Market email newsletter twice monthly to your inbox. http://www.downtownslc.org/newsletter.htm

I think that I’ll get the boys up early that day and find our way over to Trax. They love riding the train, and that will be a great way to start the day. To go along with the food, is the Art & Craft Market:

Downtown Art & Craft Market 2008

Dates: Saturdays - June 14 thru Oct 18 When: 8:00am to 1:00pm Where: Historic Pioneer Park (300 South 300 West) Downtown Salt Lake City The Downtown Art & Craft Market features vendors who create all categories of handmade, non-imported crafts and visual arts; including original paintings, photography, jewelry, pottery, household wares, leather goods, dried flowers, bath products, furniture, and one-of-a-kind gifts.

While I’m writing about local events, I should include these, from the Local First newsletter.

• Attend the Salt Lake City Open House on Conditional Use Zoning on June 11th

Consultants working with the Salt Lake City Council are holding a public open house to review the Conditional Use Zoning Ordinance refinement process and to discuss potential changes to the ordinance amendments. The open house will be held Wednesday, June 11th from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM at Salt Lake City’s Main Library Branch (210 East, 400 South) on the 4th Floor. For more information email Robyn Geist at robyn@wfandco.com.

• Join Local First and Partners at Salt Lake’s City Weekly Summer Rec Fest on June 14th

Salt Lake City Weekly’s Summer Rec Fest was created to boast Utah’s greatest outdoor assets. The festival will include Dutch oven cooking competitions, fly-fishing demonstrations, a climbing wall, live music, food, and prizes! Local First and partners will have vendor booths. Come support the Local First community and enjoy the atmosphere on June 14th from 12 PM to 6PM at the Gallivan Center in Downtown Salt Lake City. Email info@localfirst.org for more information or visit http://slweekly.com.

• Visit the Zion Canyon Art and Flute Festival June 9th Through June 15th

The Zion Canyon Art and Flute festival is a gathering of world flute recording artists performing live on stage, flute makers and native artists displaying their original work. Admission is $1.00 per person and takes place in Springdale, UT. For directions and more information visit www.zioncanyonartandflutefestival.com.

Side Note: While I was on the Downtown Alliance web site, I noticed a poll asking if I agreed with the proposed change to downtown parking, requiring payment on evenings and Saturdays. Let them know what you think.

URGENT: Support the Climate Security Act!

Target: US Senate
Sponsored by: Environmental Defense Fund

UPDATE (June 5, 2008): The Senate has scheduled a “cloture” vote to end the filibuster on the Climate Security Act tomorrow morning. It could come as early as tonight.
———–
The Senate is set to vote on the Climate Security Act in early June.

It is crucial that the bill gets passed this year. Each year we wait means extra effort in reducing emissions to avoid catastrophic global warming.

There are five simple but extremely important reasons why the Senate must act now:

• Every year we wait equals extra effort.
• The science is unforgiving.
• The political opportunity is ripe.
• Someone is going to win the global race to reinvent energy. It should be us.
• This is an opportunity for the 110th Congress to leave its legacy.

We have no time to lose. Help keep up the pressure so the Senate doesn’t miss this historic opportunity!

Dear Senator,

I strongly urge you to put an end to the Senate filibuster on the landmark Climate Security Act by voting Yes on cloture.

This is the most important climate vote in the Senate in three years. No time has been more critical for the environment and our future generations.

Here’s why you should vote Yes on cloture and the Climate Security Act:

1. Every year we wait equals extra effort. If we delay this bill by just two years, we will have to make twice the annual cuts in carbon emissions to hit the same cumulative reductions by 2020.

2. The science is unforgiving. As the Earth warms, we approach a “tipping point,” after which large destructive climate changes become inevitable.

3. The political opportunity is ripe. 78% of Americans want Congress to act on global warming. We need to take advantage of the tremendous momentum that exists today.

4. Someone is going to win the global race to reinvent energy. It should be us. Renewable energy promises to become one of the world’s most profitable industries. But advances in renewable energy technologies will not be fully realized without a national cap on global warming pollution. The sooner we act, the sooner these new industries will start to flourish.

5. What legacy will the 110th Congress leave? When future generations look back at this moment, they will either praise the Senate for starting us down the path to solving the global warming crisis, or blame the Senate for squandering this opportunity.

Thank you for your leadership.

Sincerely,
[Your name here]

Maybe Jim Matheson will get the hint.

There’s a rumor going around that I might be getting engaged soon. Since I’m hoping the rumor is true, I was happily surprised to run across this blog titled “Eco Bridal: DIY, Upcycle or Handcraft Your Wedding Dress”.

Not only does Leslie Richard list 9 different custom dress designers that are green, she also links to ecoparti, where you can get biodegradable ecofetti and other wedding/party favors.

I’ve told Dax that I want a white wedding, with all the trimmings. I guess now I need to re-evaluate, because a “green wedding” seems more my style. I still want the white dress, though.

This post was inspired by the City Weekly Salt Blog. Jerre Wroble bemoans rising gas prices, and the inability to get around it’s side effects, ending with the question “Any suggestions?”

I started to reply, but it wound up being a really long reply, and a little off topic, then became more of a rambling self-evaluation, so I decided that it belonged on my blog as an independent post.

Without further ado, here you are, the answer to life, the universe and everything, as it applies to me.

Dealing with the widespread effect of high gas prices isn’t a simple solution deal. It’s kind of like dieting, it takes a lifestyle change, and in my case the solution is to be as green as possible. It’ll actually save money, over the long haul. It’ll cost more in the short run.

Biking to work may be practical one day a week, and carpooling the other 4. I currently work from home 2 days a week, and carpool in our hybrid SUV (Escape) the other 3. That will be changing, when my assignment at work does, but for now that’s where I’m at. I have a friend who owns a hybrid Prius, and works 4 long days a week, instead of 5. Check Google for carpooling options.

Buying local might save you (and the environment) for some things, and others you’ll need to look harder to find the right solution. I haven’t completely gotten there yet, but I do look around to see what I can buy locally, what small businesses I can patronize instead of warehouse stores. I look for things that were made or grown here in Utah, like produce, so they don’t have to be shipped across the country. We try to do things ourselves instead of buying pre-made items.

Spend some quality time with your offspring and have them walk or ride their bikes with you down to the store for a treat, instead of driving.

If you aren’t a gardener, plant an herb garden to get you started. Find neighbors or friends who can “garden share”, and trade produce with them. This is my big goal this year, along with making this neat composter.

Switch to an old-fashioned people-powered lawn mower, instead of a gas one. It’s probably easier than pushing a gas one, so what’s the point of the more expensive, harder to push and harder to maintain gas powered mower? If you have a huge lawn and a driving lawn mower, you probably water your lawn too much and should research best practices for taking care of your lawn, as well as consider xeriscaping.

If you just “have to” go to Ikea at the other end of the valley, find some friends who were going too, and split the gas money.

If you use an RSS Reader, subscribe to “green” blogs, often disguised as craft blogs. These will help you at least keep the ideas going in your head, and might spark some way you and your family can make a big impact that you hadn’t thought of before.

I’m not as green as I’d like to be. But, I’m working towards it. And it took a long time to get the level of buy-in from my boyfriend and kids that I wanted. They have always been supportive, but their mindset is a lot more like my own on this topic than it was a year or two ago. I’ve picked up ideas that I wanted to be part of this lifestyle change, and adopted them slowly.

I shop at Whole Foods a lot, and try to eat mostly organic food. This motivates me to be healthier overall, and when I’m tempted to eat total junk food, I think about the difference between Taco Hell and the food I usually eat is, and I’m totally turned off by the junk food. Organic meat is usually more expensive, though not always. And I’m cutting back my meat portions, and replacing it with veggies and fruit.

I browse the business directory on Local First occasionally, looking to see what stores I might be able to patronize. Make smart choices about where you do business. (For example, XMission uses 100% green power, plus they’re local - find other businesses who do the same) I’ll be attending the Farmer’s Market just as soon as it opens.

I teach my children what “waste” really means, and help them find ideas for what can be done with materials that might otherwise be thrown away, and how not to wind up with such items in the first place. (You should have heard the grilling my 8 year old gave me last week when we talked about this subject!)

We’ve been using shopping bags of our own for a couple of years. Sometimes we forget to bring them, but we’ve gotten to where we bring them 90% of the time now. And when we don’t, we don’t use bags we don’t need, and we ask for paper when it’s available. Those paper bags are what we use in the kitchen to put recycling in, so they always get recycled, and they get used in a practical manner.

We’ve switched over to CFLs throughout the house (I love the daylight ones!), although I can’t bring myself to give up some of my dimmer switches, so we still have a bit to go. We turn the lights out anytime we’re not using them. This didn’t used to seem like a big deal to me, but it’s a huge change from way-back-when.

We use a thermostat with a timer so that we can adjust temperatures in the house 4 times every day of the week.

Nothing will come easy, but if you take baby steps, and continue to increase your lifestyle change, it can be done. You’ll find that eventually you question yourself frequently about whether using or buying a certain item is waste, or how you can change and use less resources. This will really lead to balance, where the important items (like, for me, good toilet paper) are canceled out by your other choices.

Green choices today will save money over time. Companies will be pressured to go green, local products will be cheaper when they become more common, and because they aren’t shipped. As I said before, green is a lifestyle change, but it’s also a social change. And as more an more people make this change, good things will happen. It’ll bring jobs, it’ll be less expensive, and it’ll help keep our planet healthy, as well as the people on it.

Start with your thought process, though. Think about each of the choices you make, and consider what the more expensive, and the less green, choices are worth to you. Even if you don’t do anything about them, at first, it will lead to better choices.

P.S. The “quit bitching” wasn’t aimed at Jerre, and I realized as I reviewed this before posting that it might be taken that way. “Quit bitching” is my personal motto, it’s why I’m involved in politics, and I find that the idea behind “quit bitching and do something” is something very motivating to me, personally.

Update: Apparently, my boyfriend thought I was pointing fingers at him, so let me clarify. He’s always been supportive of whatever I wanted to do about this, but he’s gone from being ok with me doing it, to being an active participant in being green. And when we shop other places than Whole Foods, such as Smith’s or Dan’s, it’s not “his fault”. I still feel the need to buy some things at other places, and I can’t buy stuff like my brand of clothes detergent at any of the green shops.

Much thanks to my friend Janet Hurley who sent me a link to this article:

A few weeks ago, NASA’s chief climatologist, James Hansen, submitted a paper to Science magazine with several coauthors. The abstract attached to it argued — and I have never read stronger language in a scientific paper — that “if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm.”

Hansen cites six irreversible tipping points — massive sea level rise and huge changes in rainfall patterns, among them — that we’ll pass if we don’t get back down to 350 soon; and the first of them, judging by last summer’s insane melt of Arctic ice, may already be behind us.

So it’s a tough diagnosis. It’s like the doctor telling you that your cholesterol is way too high and, if you don’t bring it down right away, you’re going to have a stroke. So you take the pill, you swear off the cheese, and, if you’re lucky, you get back into the safety zone before the coronary. It’s like watching the tachometer edge into the red zone and knowing that you need to take your foot off the gas before you hear that clunk up front.

The article talks about the “magic number” of 350 PPM (parts per million), and how important it is. Bill McKibben actually offers some options that we don’t hear about very often. Not that they’re new and a total solution, but it’s nice to see proactive discussion. He ends with this:

After all, those talks are our last chance; you just can’t do this one lightbulb at a time.

We do have one thing going for us — the Web — which at least allows you to imagine something like a grass-roots global effort. If the Internet was built for anything, it was built for sharing this number, for making people understand that “350″ stands for a kind of safety, a kind of possibility, a kind of future.

Hansen’s words were well-chosen: “a planet similar to that on which civilization developed.” People will doubtless survive on a non-350 planet, but those who do will be so preoccupied, coping with the endless unintended consequences of an overheated planet, that civilization may not.

Civilization is what grows up in the margins of leisure and security provided by a workable relationship with the natural world. That margin won’t exist, at least not for long, as long as we remain on the wrong side of 350. That’s the limit we face.

Take a read - the article’s well worth your time, and I hope that you, too, will share the article with your friends and family, and promote it on your blog. We’ve got to stop bitching about the problem, and start acting.

Tags: action